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World War 1 Centenary

World War I changed everything. From new countries to literature, from tanks to treaties and from flamethrowers to fashion, the conflict is still writ large on our lives 100 years on.

It gave birth to violent dictators and their ideologies but extended the electoral franchise to millions. It ushered in the era of mechanised warfare whilst laying the foundations for modern medicine. Empires crumbled, borders were redrawn, art movements flowered and women won the vote (even if you still had to be over 30 in some countries). Poets committed some of the most memorable imagery in modern verse to paper while a generation of writers would descend on Europe’s war-torn cities and fashion a new style of literature.

After millions of men gave their lives on the battlefields of Europe, it was doubly tragic that a deadly influenza would claim up to 50 million more deaths in the conflict’s immediate aftermath. World War I has given us daylight saving time, Dada, triage, chemical weapons, plastic surgery, fascism and, of course, another war. It invented new forms of killing and unearthed miraculous ways to save lives.

Wall Street Journal editors from around the world have selected 100 legacies that still shape our lives today. History is always open to interpretation, but as the war to end all wars retreats from living history, it feels more important than ever to remember its impact. It is everywhere you look.

Canned Food

by Inti Landauro

Canned Food

World War I helped usher in the age of industrially produced food, and there may be no better example of that than in France, long regarded as a citadel of gastronomy.

When the war began, French people were still used to eating only fresh food, most of which was prepared and grown at home or bought in open markets. Four years later, many consumers were instead getting their food at their local shops.

This happened because new technologies in food preparation that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century came into their own during the war. And with so many troops at the front there was a need. Canned food in particular was a cheap source of sustenance and it was relatively easy to mass-produce and deliver.

The army field kitchens couldn’t reach all the soldiers on the front line, so many got food rations to survive a couple of days—though some did live off those rations for longer periods.

French soldiers would each day get a 300-gram can of boiled beef; 300 grams of hard biscuits, called “war bread”; 80 grams of sugar; 36 grams of coffee; 50 grams of dried soup; 2 ounces of liquor and 125 grams of chocolate as a treat, according to author Silvano Serventi in his book “La cuisine des tranchees.” Many soldiers had never eaten canned food before going to the front.

At the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of troops returned home used to eating those foodstuffs, said French historian Martin Bruegel. Industrialists with new factories producing the packaged food were all eager to sell their products to the general public so they launched ad campaigns after the war.

Industrially produced food such as stock cubes and pasta, which weren’t that common before the war, became more widespread as the development of industry made manufactured goods cheaper and people became accustomed to eating packaged food.

Chocolate, which was distributed as a treat to soldiers on the front, also became an affordable luxury after the war. “In catalogues of that time, [chocolate bars]…are much more common after the war than before,” Mr. Bruegel said.

As a way to quench thirst as well as reduce panic in the trenches, the French army also started to distribute red wine to soldiers. At the beginning, they would get a quarter of a liter a day though gradually the daily ration was increased to a full 75-centiliter bottle a day, according to Mr. Serventi.

The war contributed to the spread of wine consumption in regions with no wineries. After the war, soldiers from Brittany and northern France—more used to drinking cider or beer—returned home with the taste for red wine.

Also contributing to changes in diet was the identification of vitamins and their influence on health in 1912 by Polish chemist Kazimierz Funk. This discovery changed the whole hierarchy of food. While previously many people saw meat, fish, eggs and other protein-rich food as noble and healthy, the pendulum began to swing toward fruits and vegetables.

The hardships of war also gave another type of food a brief moment in the sun: high-yield and cheap tubers such as salsify or Jerusalem artichokes, which are known as topinambours in France. They flooded the markets on both sides of the front, Mr. Bruegel said. “Those crops yield a lot, don’t demand much work or much land,” he said.

These root vegetables didn’t win scores of admirers during the war, so many people shunned them when peace returned. They reappeared briefly during World War II but still didn’t win many fans.

The Wall Street Journal has selected 100 legacies from World War I that continue to shape our lives today.